Sub menu

Latest Pro Trader Reports

Share!The Treasury’s cash account continues to grow on the Fed’s H41, weekly consolidated balance sheet. It hit $422 billion at the end of November. That’s a firebomb waiting to be thrown at the market in the event of a near certainty of a dead ceiling impasse coming in March. That’s when the deal to suspend…

Share!Projections have dropped. They’re likely to be hit if support here breaks down. This report shows the new targets. Mining stocks still appear to be worth a nibble here based on hints this low in the precious metals stock indexes could hold. I have added a few more picks to the list. The volatility in…

Share!The market spent last week falling back to and testing the breakout area at 2185. If it holds, the bulls are still in charge and the market will have established a new short term uptrend channel. But if doesn’t hold, beware the abyss that lies beneath. Market Update Pro subscribers click here to download the complete…

Share!The TBAC has forecast $390 billion in cash at year end. With the 10 day average balance now at $400 billion it implies that there will be no additional cash pulled from the market for the remainder of the year. However, if the Obama Gang wants to go out with a bang, they could spend…

Share!The European banking collapse paused in October with a minor uptick in total deposits. In addition there was a massive, mysterious revision of the figures from earlier this year. But it doesn’t change the basic facts of how dangerous conditions there are for the US. Get The Wall Street Examiner delivered to your inbox every…

Share!The 13 week cycle projection of 1171 was reached. However, the 9-12 month and 6-7 week cycle projections now point to 1155-60. Here’s what needs to happen to signal a turn. The precious metals stock index also looks to be closer to a bottom. I have added a couple of bottom fishing stocks to our…

Share!The market broke through a wall of resistance in the 2185- 90 area. By the end of the week it was well clear of the August peak. A sharp uptrend channel has formed. That needs to be broken before the market can pullback. Here are the key levels to watch and the targets if they’re…

Share!The market hit a wall of resistance in the 2185- 90 area, at the top of the trading range. The trading range is very thin, and a downturn here could see the index quickly fall back to the bottom of the range. However… Market Update Pro subscribers click here to download the complete market update, including…

Share!Technical signals for gold prior to last week had been cautionary, so the selloff in the metal was not a complete surprise. However, the smash in gold stocks was a surprise, and did serious technical damage. Here’s what needs to happen to turn the outlook positive, or what to look for if certain levels do…

Juked by Medicine

This still moment on the verge of spring equinox, industrial civilization is taking a rest from its travails of finance and economy. The creaking and groaning vehicle of world banking lurches forward with its latest patch, the Greek fix, but the explosive resignation last week of a Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith, posted as an op-ed essay in no less than the New York Times, afforded a glimpse into the dark place where American values crawled off to die, like turning over a rock in a meadow to find the white slithering things that dwell there, and asserting a broad and anguished truth at the heart of our culture: all is swindle.

In the still moment, the nation is digesting this discovery, and I think it will represent a turning point in the arduous plotline of the crime story that banking has become. It’s also the moment of reawakening for the Occupy movement as it now struggles with what it is to become. I doubt that it can avoid turning angrily and maybe viciously political as it focuses its energies on occupying this summer’s looming political conventions.

But in this still moment I want to take a break from purely public issues for a second week and discuss some personal things: nutrition and medicine. I hope it will be of interest to some of you. Last week, after a four year misadventure on an ultra low-fat vegan diet (no meat, no cheese, no eggs), I turned around 180 degrees and resumed eating all those verboten things again. I had been feeling shitty for a long time, in particular with muscle pain, muscle weakness, penetrating fatigue, and some weird neurological symptoms and I decided to take drastic measures.

This personal misadventure started about four and half years ago when my doctor read me the riot act on my cholesterol numbers. The total was around 290. I forget exactly what the LDL (“bad” cholesterol) was, but it wasn’t good, and ditto the HDL (“good” cholesterol) and the triglycerides (oy vay). The upshot was that my doctor put me on a whopping dose of the most powerful statin drug, Crestor 40mg (made by AstraZenica). I left his office feeling like my identity was transformed from a healthy normal person to a prisoner on death row.

I thought I had been leading a healthy life. Being self-employed, and master of my own schedule, I was able to work in a lot of exercise. For twenty-five years I was a runner. A hip replacement put an end to that. During that same period, I also swam a mile a day in the local YMCA lap pool. After hip surgery, I walked daily instead of running, kept swimming, and also did at least four weekly sessions in the weight room (including the cardio machines such as the elliptical trainer, easy on the joints). During the temperate months, I also biked many days of the week. Because I got so much exercise, I thought I could eat anything I wanted to, and did. I was a capable cook, having worked in many restaurant jobs during my starving bohemian years, and I could competently put together everything from a butterflied leg of lamb to a flourless chocolate cake.

After receiving my “death sentence” from the doc, I went straight to the cardio diet bookshelf and found works by two of the chief authorities on the subject: Dr. Dean Ornish, the popular TV celebrity, and Dr. Caldwell Essylsten, a less public but also renowned nutrition guru from the Cleveland Clinic. Both of them promoted ultra low-fat essentially vegan diets. I used them as a guide for learning how to cook for myself in a new way. This largely revolved around vegetables braised in stocks rather than oil-fried in a wok, lots of brown rice and other whole grains (oats, especially), and the substitution of plant (soy) based protein foods like tofu, tempeh, and the various veggie “burger” products for actual meat. Plenty of salads, of course, and fruit. Of the two diet docs, Essylsten was the most severe. You were barely allowed to eat a nut. However, in defiance I ate the same lunch every day for all those years: peanut butter on one slice of our local Rock Hill 8-grain bread. Otherwise I was pretty strict with myself.

Over the next several years I lost about 20 pounds (from 188 to 168 – I am 5′ 10″). By 2011, my cholesterol was down to 110 total (about equal LDLs and HDLs), but I was feeling shitty all the time as described above: lack of stamina, muscle pains, cramps, etc. I was aware that I was getting old, over 60, but I suspected that these were not necessarily natural aging issues. I was having trouble remembering things, names especially, and at times felt like my brain was fogged. I developed neuropathies (tingling and numbness) in my hands and feet. I grew suspicious that these things were connected with the whopping dose of Crestor that I was on. There is, of course, a body of anecdotal chat on the Web about the evils of Crestor and other statin drugs, and in July of 2011 I decided to taper down and get off the stuff. By September it was out of my system. My doctor was rather cross with me. He assured me that an LDL level above 70 was a death sentence, should I get back there.

Over the next six months, the brain fog and the name-forgetting went away, but the muscle issues and fatigue-and-stamina problems persisted. I was still on my nearly fat-free vegan diet. My theory was to see how far up my cholesterol would go on diet alone. In November it clocked in at 220 total and I forget the LDL number because my doctor was shaking his head and making clucking sounds as he reported it, along with his now-standard empirical warning that I was back in the death zone.

So, all winter I staggered on feeling shitty and eating low-fat vegan. There is for sure a large body of counter-argument on the whole cholesterol issue, led by the author-journalist Gary Taubes (a supernaturally fit-looking dude). This argument states that fat is actually a critical and essential component of human diet, and animal fat in particular, which is crucial for the continual process of cell renewal and the processing of many other nutrients, especially many vitamins. There is also a range of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, that you can only get from animal foods. All of these things have a bearing on muscle performance and the health of nerve tissue, in which fats are an indispensible component.

Frankly, I knew about these counter-arguments, but the authority of medicine these days militates the opposite way, and in these nearly five years I allowed the authority of my doctor to persuade me to drive down my cholesterol by all means available. I now regard this as a mistake, perhaps even a personal fiasco. I think I have done a lot of damage to my system and that it will take a long time to repair. But I am back in the realm of meat, cheese, and eggs. And, yes, I do eat a lot of vegetables, especially green and leafy ones, and I am watching my carbohydrates (but not eschewing them).

I’ve also come to a conclusion about what started this whole long melodrama. At the time I first got my high cholesterol “riot act” reading, I was also eating a lot of sugar and refined white flour in a certain form. In the evenings, after a day that included at least two episodes of strenuous exercise, I allowed myself to eat Pepperidge Farm cookies and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I probably ran through a bag of cookies every two or three days and ditto a pint of ice cream. I now believe that my cholesterol numbers were high not so much because of the meat and cheese that I was eating, but because I regularly consumed too much sugar and refined flour. That is my current theory and narrative.

So, I’m back to an omnivore’s diet. (The first time I had real eggs scrambled in butter in nearly five years was quite a moment!) It’s been about ten days. I can’t say that I’ve noticed any marked improvements. As I said above, it will probably take a long time to undo the damage done. I’ll check in again on this theme after a while and let you know how things are going. I’m scheduled to go in for another routine physical on Friday. I imagine it will be a contentious session. But I wonder if doctors are losing their legitimacy now in a way similar to the other authority figures in our culture: the political leaders, the bankers economists, the business executives. To get back to where I started this blog, all is swindle these days. And medicine, being the life-and-death racket that it is, may be the biggest swindle of them all.

Cut through the Wall Street spin to get a clear view of the markets and the economy."Get the facts" delivered every day.

Check your inbox for the confirmation email which is sent instantly. If not there, check your SPAM folder and be sure to whitelist the "From: Lee Adler" email address. Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.

Latest News and Opinion

In case you missed it, The Washington Post’s criminally careless publishing of “fake news” about purported “Russian propaganda” created a backlash–and the Post’s attorney-approved bleating to sidestep responsibility for publishing “fake news” failed to calm the waters.

More of the same didn’t cut it for the American middle class this November, … and so the Obama voters went to the Republicans, as Hillary Clinton failed to impress onto the middle class any sort of vision they can relate to.Per Pew Research, out of 5…

It was nearly 20 years ago to the day that Alan Greenspan delivered his famous “irrational exuberance” speech. Little did he know how far it could go. Even less has his pernicious legacy been accorded the condemnation it so richly deserves.

Cut through the Wall Street spin to get a clear view of the markets and the economy. "Get the facts," delivered by email.
- Lee Adler

(Optional)

Check your inbox for the confirmation email which is sent instantly. If not there, check your SPAM folder and be sure to whitelist the "From: Lee Adler" email address. Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.